As player numbers crater, EA will shut SimCity Social, other Facebook games

Yet another sign that the social gaming bubble has well and truly burst.

It might look like SimCity, but it plays more like a Zynga game than most SimCity fans will be comfortable with.

EA

When EA paid over $300 million for social gaming powerhouse Playfish in late 2009, it probably seemed like a good investment in the future of gaming. After all, games like FarmVille were attracting tens of millions of players daily and seemed poised to upend the market for traditional pay-to-play gaming that had endured for decades.

Just over three years later, the investment looks a lot less prescient. EA has announced it will be shutting down three of its once-popular social games—SimCity Social, The Sims Social, and Pet Society—on June 14. In addition, EA will also shutter the social extensions of its popular sports game brands Madden NFL SuperStars and NHL Superstars on May 14. By this summer, there won't be a single active Playfish game available on Facebook.

"After millions of people initially logged in to play these games, the number of players and amount of activity has fallen off," EA wrote in a blog post today. "For people who have seen other recent shutdowns of social games, perhaps this is not surprising."

Indeed, the collapse of the social game market from its dizzying heights hasn't been surprising to anyone who's been paying attention. But some of the games EA is shutting down have had a pretty good run. Pet Society has been running since August 2008, which is practically geological time in the short history of social games, and it still manages to attract a million monthly players to this day. Still, that's a big drop-off for a game that was once selling 90 million virtual goods every day.

Similarly, The Sims Social rocketed to over 65 million monthly players just after its launch in 2011, only to drop to just over five million monthly players today, according to AppData. SimCity Social seems to have peaked at 10 million monthly players and has managed to hold on to just over one million of them less than a year after its launch.

Despite these declines, it's a bit surprising to learn that EA doesn't consider it worthwhile to continue operating servers for games that still have millions of players. The decision is easier to understand, though, when you consider that only one to three percent of social game players actually spend any money on those titles. When 97 percent (or more) of your players are free-to-play moochers, you need an extremely large player base (along with a few "whales") to keep the revenue machine rolling, which explains why social games are so eager for you to spam your friends.

Is the social gaming fad finally and truly dead? Maybe not. At EA, games like Bejeweled Blitz, Solitaire Blitz, and Zuma Blitz have been showing relatively stable, committed player bases that seem to have justified EA's acquisition of Popcap. Elsewhere on Facebook, match-three puzzler Candy Crush Saga has come from nowhere to amass over 45 million players, and Zynga's FarmVille 2 is holding on to over 40 million players months after its launch last September.

Some significant market will likely always exist for the latest social clickfest, even if the numbers may never again match those of a few years ago. In any case, it's nice that we don't really have to endure any more Chicken Little, the-sky-is-falling predictions about how social gaming is going to overwhelm and replace the kind of traditional games that have proved their enduring popularity since the '70s.

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It seems to me that future social games will fall into two categories:

1. "real" games that have value beyond their social aspects that are improved by social interaction. you know, something you could in theory take offline and still enjoy.2. Fad of the month games that will peak, get some people to drop a bit of cash, and then die off. I wouldn't be surprised if a company like EA finds 10-15 solid core mechanics for these games and then reskins them to launch on a rotating monthly cycle, with only three on at any given time. And maybe some kind of tracking system so people don't feel gypped when their favorite fad game closes, and they can get "credit" for it elsewhere.

Facebook has also cracked down on the amount of notification spam games can create recently, because it was driving users crazy. That has made it harder to spam your friends into trying games, which is hurting these things.

83 Reader Comments

Having played a bit of SimCity Social, it's not surprising to me that it's going under. The game was basically unplayable without incessant friend-spamming or fairly serious investment of real money -- investment that would pretty quickly eclipse the entry price of the "real" SimCity.

It seems to me that future social games will fall into two categories:

1. "real" games that have value beyond their social aspects that are improved by social interaction. you know, something you could in theory take offline and still enjoy.2. Fad of the month games that will peak, get some people to drop a bit of cash, and then die off. I wouldn't be surprised if a company like EA finds 10-15 solid core mechanics for these games and then reskins them to launch on a rotating monthly cycle, with only three on at any given time. And maybe some kind of tracking system so people don't feel gypped when their favorite fad game closes, and they can get "credit" for it elsewhere.

I don't necessarily object to games funded by microtransactions. They're basically the same model as arcade games. Paying a buck here and there can still be much less expensive than paying $10 or $20 for "full" access to a game I may only play for a week or two.

That said, I haven't seen too many games do it well so it's no surprise they aren't making much money from them. They are presented in such a way as to appeal to people who don't want to pay at all and it's perfectly reasonable that they might not want to. So many of these games are not any better than the free Flash games that have been around for years. The focus on Facebook tie-ins, requiring you to install their "app" in order to grant access to your profile data, and the push to spam your social feeds all combine to make it feel like you're paying for something that is already ad-based. It's like the sour taste you get from paying to watch a program and still needing to sit through commercials.

The thing about these games is, they really lack any real depth. The question I gotta ask is, who in the right mind would want to pay real money for these social games?

People that don't play games and don't know what to expect. They likely don't even know what kinds of games are out there or what those games are called or even where to buy those games.

Imagine you've never played a video game. You're on Facebook and you are a bit bored. An ad pops up for something that's free and lets you be a farmer. You click on it and are already in the game. It tells you some simple tasks to perform and the reward you'll get if you do it (in this case it's not hard, it just wants you to rape your friends' feeds).

You have no idea that this is a cheesy version of what those geeky loser gamers play. And you have no idea, while forking over money to avoid waiting for your sheep to grow, that you're getting ripped off and have spent $50 on a game that would sell for $5 if it didn't have pay to win.

EA is accepting real money for in-game currency items, shutting the game down, and keeping that money rather than refunding players. They're even encouraging people to spend those items before the game closes. So it's understandable that some players are angry.

I used to play around a bit with one of Playfish's older titles, a restaurant themed Facebook game. After EA took over suddenly everything about the game cost real money, and some of the small annoyances with the old game were suddenly magnified.

An example: Many desserts required sugar, which appeared only rarely in the marketplace. This was annoying, but it wasn't the end of the world. You just had to keep a good stock of cash on hand for those occasions where sugar appeared. Then EA bought out Playfish and sugar never appeared on the market again, instead EA started rolling out tons of cash only ingredients and time limited crap. They killed the game dead for me and all of my friends thanks to their short sighted cash grab.

I wouldn't be totally unsurprised if they behaved similarly with other Playfish titles. EA doesn't seem to understand that short term cash at the expense of the long term playerbase is a bad move, both in the social sphere and in the wider gaming sphere.

The biggest issue I have with these social games is the lack of quality and support. Two games on Facebook, Battle Pirates by KixEye and Kingdoms of Camelot by Kabam, are perpetually in beta stage. The games are rife with glitches and bugs...but that's okay, they're in beta. The company is not on the hook for any real quality or support unless their 'whales' start to gripe.

I played these games briefly before I gave up on Facebook altogether and was never a 'coiner'. It was evident from the outset that only those players who purchase in-game items have any chance for competing at higher levels. I understand the companies' business models and don't begrudge them making a profit but the last I heard Kixeye was projected to earn $81 million for the year...for a game in beta. Nice business model.

Facebook has also cracked down on the amount of notification spam games can create recently, because it was driving users crazy. That has made it harder to spam your friends into trying games, which is hurting these things.

I played SimCity Social (it's really neither of those) for about 15 minutes before quitting. I love SimCity games but it's nothing at all like any of the SimCity games, even that new one that everyone loves to bash. The idea of Social is all about bothering your friends, doing meaningless tasks and wasting time. It's not even really about building and running the city.

If i had to name it, it would be SimFarmville Antisocial. Just terrible.

The thing about these games is, they really lack any real depth. The question I gotta ask is, who in the right mind would want to pay real money for these social games?

Same with Free-to-play games. If they had any depth you'd be able to move beyond the "mouse pressing the cocaine lever" kind of addiction and actually be able to finish the game.

The real problem here is they're not refunding anyone with credits remaining in the game. I'm sorry, but you can't charge people real money for in-game things then shut the game down. If you took it to provide a service and you shut down that service, you need to refund the money if you ever intend to get people to buy into your next scam, er, pay to play game.

It might look like SimCity, but it plays more like a Zynga game than most SimCity fans will be comfortable with.

Even though its tagline was "more city, less ville." Unfortunately, the tagline is pretty much a lie. It was very much like 'ville games.

They're all pretty much identical games with nearly identical mechanics and the same broken business model. If they had worked on making their business models more sensible and less annoying, they would last longer.

The only thing that really sold these games was "ooh, new shiny thing." Now that they're not new anymore - and honestly they're not really all that good - yeah, they're failing.

EA is accepting real money for in-game currency items, shutting the game down, and keeping that money rather than refunding players. They're even encouraging people to spend those items before the game closes. So it's understandable that some players are angry.

EA shutting down the servers for games that still have millions of players and are only a year or two old. Even if they're free-to-play junk, lots of people have spent real money on them. Just another example of why we don't want games to require always-online connections unless it's essential to their core gameplay.

EA shutting down the servers for games that still have millions of players and are only a year or two old. Even if they're free-to-play junk, lots of people have spent real money on them. Just another example of why we don't want games to require always-online connections unless it's essential to their core gameplay.

Unfortunately, most social games are pretty dependent on the servers to operate.

EA is accepting real money for in-game currency items, shutting the game down, and keeping that money rather than refunding players. They're even encouraging people to spend those items before the game closes. So it's understandable that some players are angry.

Interesting. They're even undermining their own model by doing so. People are going to be less willing to spend money on in-game items in the future if they're aware that the existence of those items will be very short lived.

I mean, I spend money on a cup of coffee and that is very short lived, but still... A cup of good coffee is worth a lot more to me than a stupid in-game hat or a new collar for my dumb virtual dog.

I used to play around a bit with one of Playfish's older titles, a restaurant themed Facebook game. After EA took over suddenly everything about the game cost real money, and some of the small annoyances with the old game were suddenly magnified.

There's reports an EA studio in London has been closed, where Playfish is based. So it appears the entire company has been shuttered along with its titles.

I would be interested to know if EA managed to eke out a profit on that purchase before usage started dropping off a cliff. Considering some of the stats that got thrown around about social gaming, this may not have ended up being a terrible investment for them.

It's a problem with EA in general, with the overriding goal not "lets make fun games", but rather "lets make money". This philosophy has turned them into the graveyard of franchises, where small successful studios get bought up and then release one or two more iterations of their big name title, only to see lackluster sales thanks to the new versions being watered down half baked messes that alienate the fans. After those fail to sell well, the franchise is shut down and the developers fired.

I've played some of their games that I've enjoyed quite a bit (Sims Social, Simpsons) that I've been willing to pay money for, to obtain in-game items or whatever. But the price for those things is astronomically, absurdly, stupidly high. So high that I imagine that their primary audience is rich kids charging to their parents' phone bill, and people who don't realize what they're doing.

A decoration in a game should not cost $10 of real money. Move the decimal 2 places to the left and then I'll be happy to pay. The only way these games can succeed is if the prices are reasonable.

I would be interested to know if EA managed to eke out a profit on that purchase before usage started dropping off a cliff. Considering some of the stats that got thrown around about social gaming, this may not have ended up being a terrible investment for them.

Yeah the article seems to pretend that advertisement revenue isn't significant. It's still massive, just not as big as major players like EA would like it to be.

I think the casual game market has become saturated and that's the reason the social gaming bubble burst. Major publishers are trying to treat the gaming market like the widget market, just make more widgets and make more money. It doesn't work that way. The thing about gamers of all types is that their expectations grow as they game. Gaming is a creative process. I hope the big publishers are finally getting this lesson stuck in their head.

Social is a tricky beast to get right. A lot of these games had a limited shelf life once people got tired of spamming their friends. I think Real Racing is doing a much better job where your facebook friends are only apparent from within the game (No feed spamming). There is no advantage to having friends perform actions, other than having race-times to beat.

Simcity social should have been what SimCity is now and SimCity should be well SimCity.

I do not feel bad for EA ! EA is such a bad Corporation and we all know it.They thought they had found another way to feed their Greed and look what happened.We could of told them this years ago...............They wouldn't have listened anyways.

The thing about these games is, they really lack any real depth. The question I gotta ask is, who in the right mind would want to pay real money for these social games?

In my opinion, they're a lot like Monopoly or Tic-Tac-Toe. If you're not someone familiar with board games, then you might look at either and think, "This is a fun game with lots of depth." The truth is that there's little (Monopoly's strategy amounts to buying the orange properties and railroads) to no (Tic-Tac-Toe has been solved and the first player cannot lose) strategy. Yet both of these games remain incredibly popular and Monopoly continues to put out new editions every year, out-selling games with actual depth.

Why are people surprised over this? It was based upon the fickle desires of people, and those desires always change and decrease over time. There is only so much an on line/virtual interaction can offer, then it gets old and falls out of use as people change.

If they made more of their games like the Dragon Age facebook/G+ the was online around the launch of Dragon Age II, they probably would have more success. That game was playable without spending money, didn't require you to annoy anyone, and best of all when it finally ended they provided users with an option to get an offline version (with your data). Simply put, it had a story with a beginning and an end with optional parts that allowed you to compete with others.

As I see it, games like Dragon Age can succeed because they follow the old BBS game format with micro-transactions and ads to provide income. But you could still enjoy the game without spending money. The only other model I see surviving is the Bejeweled blitz model where it is about being the best in your social and trying to win prizes while the actual game is only 30-60 seconds long.

It's a problem with EA in general, with the overriding goal not "lets make fun games", but rather "lets make money". This philosophy has turned them into the graveyard of franchises, where small successful studios get bought up and then release one or two more iterations of their big name title, only to see lackluster sales thanks to the new versions being watered down half baked messes that alienate the fans. After those fail to sell well, the franchise is shut down and the developers fired.

I think EA pretty much abandoned the "let's make fun games" philosophy around the turn of the millennium. At one time, they were real innovators in games design, but for a long time now, they've been cranking out "me-too" games (usually buying out studios like Playfish to break into emerging markets like social gaming) and "more-of-the-same" games (witness the entire Madden series, for example). Or, as you said, they'll take note of popular games made by small studios, buy out said studios, then totally screw up the game mechanics in an attempt to turn the game franchises into mass-market cash cows.

Let me end by saying this to indie game developers everywhere: Do not ever even consider aligning yourself with Electronic Arts, much less letting them buy you out. EA is The Kiss Of Death for gaming innovation and fun. Or, to put it into geekier terms, they are the Borg of electronic gaming, assimilating every game developer in their path and turning them into soulless, carbon-copy drones. Don't let them do it to you!

EA is accepting real money for in-game currency items, shutting the game down, and keeping that money rather than refunding players. They're even encouraging people to spend those items before the game closes. So it's understandable that some players are angry.

Which is why, especially after the SimCity anal fisting we got, I will never buy another EA game again. If people would just stop buying from them, we can see companies like EA die out the way it should be. We need more Stardocks/Valves/CD Projekts in this world, not more EAs. EA ruins the majority of the games and dev houses they inherit. They are a scourge in the gaming world.

On topic: agreed with a lot of the posters above about the games. But I found that it wasn't just those reasons, the games generally were boring as hell. Nothing really compelling, at least IMHO. But then again I tend to be pretty hardcore about games so I am probably not the target audience.

In any case, it's nice that we don't really have to endure any more Chicken Little, the-sky-is-falling predictions about how social gaming is going to overwhelm and replace the kind of traditional games that have proved their enduring popularity since the '70s.

Now similar predictions center around mobile games instead. Progress?

I can't wait for the mobile bubble to burst, too (or "undergo a market correction"). Despite the bravado, it IS worrying to see droves of game studios and developers abandon the long-form, complex or immersive games we've loved for the simplicity and cheapness mobile and social games.

Kyle Orland / Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area.